Elizabeth Peyton

Fantastic! Clockwise from top left: Elizabeth Peyton, ‘Pete Doherty (Isle of Wight June 2007)’, 2007, watercolour on paper, 36x26cm, copyright the artist, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London; painting of the Manic Street Preachers by Sara Jayne from ‘The Uses of Literacy’ by Jeremy Deller, published by Bookworks; Karen Kilimnik, ‘Prince Charming’, 1998, water soluble oil colour on canvas, 51x61cm, courtesy 303 Gallery, New York; Kim Pace, ‘Frenzy’ (installation detail), 2000, charcoal wall drawings, courtesy of The Bonington Gallery, Nottingham; Stella Vine, ‘Polly (Pink Chair)’, 2002, oil on board, 24x28cm; small portraits in text, Cathy Lomax. Cathy lomax swoons along with the rest of the fans as she examines a contemporary cultural phenomenon. ‘Fandom is one of the purest forms of unrequited love; it is both euphoric and destroying. You love them and they don’t want to be of listening to her parents’ copy of The Beatles, Live anywhere near you.’ Jessica Voorsanger at the Hollywood Bowl LP combined with the very real experience of going to boy band concerts herself. ‘May 13th 1955, Jacksonville Florida, Elvis’s performance at the Gator Bowl caused a riot, the first of its kind in rock ‘n’ roll history… Hysteria, especially hysterically, screaming girls, Hank Snow, Slim Whitman and others watched in amazement and get a bad press. They are seen as immature and the fear when audience members jumped onto the stage and began embodiment of all that is bad and silly about females. tearing Elvis’s clothes off him. Critics claimed watching Elvis perform was like watching a striptease while sipping milk. He looked to be When Take That split in the 1990s mass hysteria broke decent and lewd, proper and sexual and steamy but cool… Elvis out amongst their legion of female fans and special naively teased “girls I’ll see you backstage’” Taking his cue, fourteen counselling hotlines were set up to cater for suicidal thousand fans grappled to leap on stage and rip off Elvis’s pink shirt, white jacket and shoes.’ Sleeve Notes, ‘Elvis Louisiana ’55’ tendencies. These fully committed fans can be terrify- ingly to their idols, as numerous stars have found out There are two media stereotypes of the fan, an unruly when they are stalked, propositioned and in moments member of a hysterically unhinged crowd or a mentally of high passion their clothes ripped from them. Ten- unstable loner, devoted to an idol they will never know. nessee Williams’ play Orpheus Descending (the film Although there are examples of both, neither tells the renamed The Fugitive Kind starred Marlon Brando complete story and of course fans are not only aligned although Tennessee originally wanted Elvis to wear Val to rock stars. There are fans of gardening, cats and Xavier’s snakeskin jacket) examined this phenomenon even scrabble. However these more genteel pursuits teaming it with the myth of Orpehus who had the abil- don’t tend to attract the same fervent zeal as rock and ity to entrance listeners with his music and was eventu- pop and their fans are consequently less likely to suffer ally torn to pieces by a mob. society’s derision and disapproval. The cliché male fan foregoes emotions for a The growing prominence of the fan in the 20th rampaging destructiveness and a tendency to indulge century is popularly seen as being tied up with a in what could be termed mob behaviour, such as the decline in community and the subsequent rising excesses and dubious political alliances of importance of the mass media. The media’s persua- some punk and skinhead audiences. Back sion tactics whip up emotions and replace family and in the 50s ‘early British performances of community ties with bonds to constructed figures, the Bill Haley band and the first show- most commonly rock or film stars. The psychological ings of Elvis Presley films were celebrated compensation of either identifying with, or idolising a by rows of razored seats in the theatres star can be seen as ‘an attempt to make up for all that concerned. These did not indicate dissatisfaction with modern life lacks.’1 the performance or anger with the management. They Male and female fans fall into separate cliché- were signatures. They said if anything, “Thank you Bill, ridden groups. Females exert an emotional, eroticised Elvis, for making your violence for us. Now we’ll make energy epitomised by prolonged periods of screaming. ours for you…” Tribal gestures of tribal significance. The Beatles concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964 Society, far from being an enemy, was not even a con- and Shea Stadium in 1965 saw four small figures sideration.’2 climb on stage amid deafening noise. As they started These stereotypes feature the fan as an easily to play the screaming stepped up a notch, and their influenced infantile figure and paint the objects of music became all but inaudible. Kim Pace used this their attentions as hardly more intelligent or impor- as a starting point for Frenzy, a theatrical installation tant. A reading that ignores the fact that the ‘stars’ of wall drawings, stage lighting and a soundtrack. The posses very unique qualities, most importantly the work explores ideas of pop idolisation, teenage obses- ability to communicate a raw emotion to their audi- sion and fan delirium and was Inspired by memories ence. Frank Sinatra’s passionate bobbysoxer fans were GARAGELAND a matter of international concern. A Guardian article from 1945 reported that: ‘Psychologists have written soberly about the hypnotic quality of his voice and the remarkable effect upon susceptible young women… One young woman is known to have sat through 56 consecutive performances, which means about eight consecutive days. Some of the youngsters faint with hunger and fatigue after sitting six or eight hours without food, but still refuse to leave until they are bodily removed by the attendants’. Fifties star Johnnie Ray was ‘nicknamed the Nabob of Sob and the Million Dollar Teardrop, he flaunted his neuroses and would ritually end every stage show collapsed and sobbing. He would tremble, twist, choke in agony, squirm and buckle and most of all weep, aggressively and THESE MESSIAH-LIKE exhibitionistically.’3 These stars have a rare talent or X factor if you will; their lifestyles may sometimes look FIGURES HAVE A FAR strange but to rise to the status of an idol they have to be special. ‘Look at Michael Jackson,’ points out artist GREATER POWER Jessica Voorsanger, ‘he is considered freakish after all of his plastic surgery, life crises and court cases. But THAN POLITICIANS try to sing Thriller and you’ll see how talented he is. Michael Jackson is a phenomenal singer.’ These messiah-like figures have a far greater power than politicians to influence their followers. They have the ability to tap into a hidden place in their fans heads giving them something that feels personal to each of them. This phenomena is hard to define but CS Lewis came close to it with his definition of something he called Sehnsucht in the essay The Weight of Glory4: ‘I am almost com- mitting an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you - the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence... the secret we can not hide and cannot tell though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something which has never actually appeared in our experience’. Jessica Voorsanger has made a number of works inspired by David Cassidy. ‘I became a fan of the Partridge Family when I was six years old and watched the TV show. It was at that point that I fell in love with David. When I started making the work it came from seeing the pandemonium about Take That and wanting to explore what makes an idol fascinating to their fan. David Cassidy was interesting to me because he was a safe pop star for a young girl to like. He was pretty, sang with his TV family in his TV pop band and never seemed to take advantage of girls (we learned later of course that he lived his rock star years as hard as the next guy)’. Voorsanger’s David Cassidy work has ranged from collecting memorabilia (including a lunch that she shared with David while interviewing him for What’s on in London magazine) to creating the The Partridge Wear Collection; ‘assorted altered/created clothes, labelled with synopses of the episode that they appeared in’ . Kim Pace’s Frenzy installation also featured memorabilia; photographed and shown on large-scale light-box. At the centre of this image is a drawing of Davy from the Monkees (the first ‘manufactured’ boy band) suggesting a fan has just traced the image of their idol. She asserts that ‘whilst tracing the image of the latest pop sensation, young fans can project fantasies from a safe distance, and find an outlet for awakening passion.’ Voorsanger through her David Cassidy work ‘was trying to understand how the ‘celebrity machine’ worked, how was it that David Cassidy received over 2,000 letters a day and never saw any of them but that all the kids that wrote to him were sent invita- tions to join his fan club?’ The special ability that a pop star has to communicate with his audience has obvious commercial potential and can subsequently be exploited. What is harder to quantify and manipulate is exactly what it is that makes a star. The numerous attempts to manufacture pop idols often end in failure Facing page: drawing of Ritchie Edwards by Krisha (top); drawing of Richie Edwards by Anna Vass, both from ‘The Uses of Literacy’ by Jeremy maybe because more often than not the manufactured Deller, published by Bookworks.

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